Interdisciplinary works on GPS and other global navigation satellite systems are classed in 910.285 Computer applications in geography and travel, as shown by the class-here note at 910.285: “Class here interdisciplinary works on geographic information systems (GIS), global positioning systems (GPS).” Examples are GPS for Dummies and Fun with GPS.

The number 910.285 is built with standard subdivision notation T1—0285 Computer applications. There is a scatter see reference at 910.285: “For an application of geographic information systems (GIS) or global positioning systems (GPS) to a subject, see the subject, plus notation T1—0285 from Table 1, e.g., GIS applications in mathematical geography 526.0285.” Works on use of GPS in various outdoor recreational activities are classed in 796.50285 Computer applications in outdoor life (built with 796.5 Outdoor life plus notation T1—0285 Computer applications), e.g., GPS-Navigation [für Wanderer, Bergsteiger, Biker . . . ]. Works on the use of GPS for hiking and backpacking are classed in 796.510285 Computer applications in walking (built with 796.51 Walking, which has the class-here note “Class here backbacking, hiking,” plus T1—0285).

Works that emphasize engineering aspects of GPS receivers are classed under radio engineering in 621.384191 Direction and position finding, which has the class-here note “Class here GPS receivers,” e.g., Hacking GPS.

Incidentally, orienteering is a competitive sport, with World Cup competition sponsored by the International Orienteering Federation (the final round of World Cup 2008 will be held in Switzerland on the first weekend of October). Works on the sport are classed in 796.58 Orienteering, e.g., Orienteering and Be Expert with Map & Compass: The Complete Orienteering Handbook. Standard rules of orienteering require that competitors use map and compass, not GPS. There are versions of the sport that allow competitors to use GPS, and GPS can be used in other ways, e.g., to make the special maps used in the sport. Nevertheless, most works on use of GPS should not be classed in 796.58 Orienteering.

September 22, 2008

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) has been in the news in the last two weeks—first, for the official start of the “Big Bang” experiment September 10. Several news sources offered informative guides, e.g., BBC, CNN, and MSNBC. Then came startup glitches. The most serious glitch (“incident in LHC sector 34”) occurred September 19; it will delay the experiment for at least two months because it requires that a sector of the tunnel be warmed up to allow for repairs (AP):

Because the Large Hadron Collider operates at near absolute zero—colder than outer space—the damaged area must be warmed to a temperature where humans can work. That takes about a month. Then it has to be re-chilled for another month.

What is the main DDC number for the Large Hadron Collider? The short answer is 539.736 Supercolliders. For details, see the Dewey blog entry for April 18, 2007.

September 20, 2008

On September 11, Juli and I attended an all-day workshop on “New Dimensions in Knowledge
Organization Systems,” jointly sponsored by CENDI and the
NKOS (Networked Knowledge Organization Systems/Services) Working Group. (CENDI
describes itself as “an interagency working group of senior scientific and
technical information managers from 13 U.S. federal agencies[, whose] mission
is to help improve the productivity of federal science- and technology-based
programs through effective scientific, technical, and related
information-support systems.” NKOS
describes itself as “a community of . . . practitioners . . . interested in the
use of knowledge organization systems in networked environments.”) The workshop was hosted by the World Bank. (Security procedures at the Bank were
tight, but the opportunity to meet in such a stunning location was well worth
it. For one thing, there aren’t too many
places in Washington, D.C., where you can view the city from the
13th floor. For another, the
conference room where we met sported a huge table [capable of seating at least
30] with individual microphones and voting facilities at each seat, hinting at
the significance of the meetings more commonly held there.)

An important take-home message from such a workshop is that much work is
being done to make knowledge organization systems interoperable. This includes, on the one hand, projects that
build mappings between two (or sometimes more) specific knowledge organization
systems. It also includes, on the other
hand, resources for representing knowledge organization systems using shared
formats, so that proprietary representation systems do not serve as barriers to
knowledge sharing. These efforts address
both syntactic and semantic interoperability. But—extending the linguistic analogy—what we aspire to ultimately is
pragmatic interoperability.

September 19, 2008

We’ve been quiet the last few weeks due to travel, vacation, review meetings for our new editorial support system, publication deadlines, and ongoing DDC development. Juli Beall, Libbie Crawford, and I took a break on Wednesday evening to meet by teleconference with colleagues at the National Library of Indonesia to plan a new Indonesian (Bahasa Indonesia) translation of Abridged Edition 14. The last Indonesian translation was published in 1979, and was based on Abridged Edition 10. The 1979 translation has been reprinted numerous times (1982, 1989, 1991, 1993 and 2006), but a new translation is definitely long overdue. We recently updated the developments for geographic areas, peoples, languages, and literatures of Indonesia—we expect to make additional adjustments to these developments plus other sections of the DDC as we work with the Indonesian translation team.

December 2016

OCLC

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